Exploring a Conceptual Framework of Koreans’ Residential Satisfaction Based on Maslow’s Human Needs: A Qualitative and Quantitative Integrated Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting manuscript titled "Exploring a conceptual framework of Koreans' Residential Satisfaction based on Maslow’s Human Needs: A qualitative and quantitative integrated study." I found the topic timely and relevant given the importance of housing satisfaction and quality of life. The integrated qualitative and quantitative methods provide a comprehensive approach to developing and validating the conceptual framework. However, I do have some comments and suggestions to further improve the manuscript:

1. The introduction could be strengthened by providing more background on prior conceptual frameworks of housing/residential satisfaction and gaps in literature that this new framework aims to address. Situating this work better within existing knowledge will help highlight its contributions.

2. More justification is needed on why Maslow's hierarchy of needs was chosen as the theoretical basis. Are there limitations of applying this framework developed in psychology to housing satisfaction?

3. The residential satisfaction factors linked to each level of the hierarchy could be explained and justified more clearly, especially for factors that may not seem intuitive. For example, why is dwelling area linked to self-actualization needs? More discussion is needed.

4. The results section is quite dense and could benefit from more logical flow between methods, analyses, and findings. Using guiding subheadings for each major analysis would help orient the reader. 

5. The differences between existing models and the MMHN-based model should be summarized in a table to clearly showcase the added value of incorporating psychological needs.

6. The conclusion could elaborate more on how this new conceptual framework can be applied in housing research and practice.

7. The format of the reference is inconsistent and should be checked. Avoid one sentence or paragraph. Combine ideas into more complete paragraphs. Check for typos and grammatical problems.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting manuscript titled "Exploring a conceptual framework of Koreans' Residential Satisfaction based on Maslow’s Human Needs: A qualitative and quantitative integrated study." I found the topic timely and relevant given the importance of housing satisfaction and quality of life. The integrated qualitative and quantitative methods provide a comprehensive approach to developing and validating the conceptual framework. However, I do have some comments and suggestions to further improve the manuscript:

1. The introduction could be strengthened by providing more background on prior conceptual frameworks of housing/residential satisfaction and gaps in literature that this new framework aims to address. Situating this work better within existing knowledge will help highlight its contributions.

2. More justification is needed on why Maslow's hierarchy of needs was chosen as the theoretical basis. Are there limitations of applying this framework developed in psychology to housing satisfaction?

3. The residential satisfaction factors linked to each level of the hierarchy could be explained and justified more clearly, especially for factors that may not seem intuitive. For example, why is dwelling area linked to self-actualization needs? More discussion is needed.

4. The results section is quite dense and could benefit from more logical flow between methods, analyses, and findings. Using guiding subheadings for each major analysis would help orient the reader. 

5. The differences between existing models and the MMHN-based model should be summarized in a table to clearly showcase the added value of incorporating psychological needs.

6. The conclusion could elaborate more on how this new conceptual framework can be applied in housing research and practice.

7. The format of the reference is inconsistent and should be checked. Avoid one sentence or paragraph. Combine ideas into more complete paragraphs. Check for typos and grammatical problems.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

 

 The authors link RSFs to Modified Maslow's Human Needs (MMHN) through a three-step qualitative and quantitative integrated analysis, filling the gap that there is little research on RSFs focusing on residents' psychological needs. The author not only provides a detailed introduction to each step of the research method but also elaborates on why a certain research method was chosen during each step process and summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of this method so that small conclusions can be logically and coherently drawn in each step, and finally reorganized into large conclusions. From this, it can be seen that the paper has a solid and rigorous structure, appropriate research methods, and logical conclusions.

Some minor expectations:

1.      The keywords section can be streamlined appropriately. For example, "Residential satisfaction" and "Residential Environment satisfaction" can be combined.

2.      The conclusion section should list the paper's main conclusions rather than generalizing.

It is recommended that this article be accepted.

 

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

We express our gratitude for your decision to allow this manuscript for publication. We will be sure to further elaborate the study to exceed the standards of reviewers and the journal.

Reviewer 3 Report

·         The proposed multi-criteria methodology, being closely related to human needs, as stated by the authors (Modified Maslow's Human Needs -MMHN), is therefore closely linked to the location of the property itself. The location reflects the needs of a resident to leave (abstracting from their taste) in a metropolitan/rural/countryside/mountain area. The location is something that often a resident cannot chose depending on family/job etc. All the other characteristics (environment and house characteristics) are strictly linked to the location where the resident needs to leave. In this consideration the localization itself varies the ratios, dependencies and possible weights calculated in the AHP from the expert responses. Therefore, this approach would make sense if it was applied to a specific city or at least to a specific typology (e.g. metropolis, rural city, etc.). In this case the focus groups or questionnaires should be reformulated to review the priorities and therefore the results. As structured now, the methodology, which refers to the entire Korean Nation, cannot be applied and the results are  not useful and relevant.

·         Row 466 – 500 - 521: all the CARTs is written in Korean, please translate to be readable. There is this issue even with all the Appendixes. This issue made quite impossible to go through and really understand the results and therefore the fully understanding of the model and of the results, in the second part of the paper, is quite impossible

·         Row 460-461: The three groups do not appear in any of the chart or previous classification neither in the AHP tree.

·         Through all the text there are multiple ways to cite bibliography, please revise for consistency: [34] vs Canco (2021) (Row: 262). Use only a method for citations.

·         The Proposed Methodology is unclear and not structured, the AHP Method is not clearly explained and discussed (Section 3.3)

·         “3.3.3 Classification and Regression Tree (CART)”: all this section is poor and do not clarify and explain properly the methodology applied. It needs to be implemented and better explained to be understandable and replicable.

·         APPENDIX A: What the “Range of the results” (100%, 80%, 60%) refers to? This is not clear and not explained into the text.

·         Table 5 (row 587) where these % came from? And what they refer to?

·         APPENDIX B (row 640): “put in as it is” cannot be considered as a unit of measure, should be: continuous number, discrete number, Years, Dollar, Square meter, etc… to be revised. “1-to-4-point scale” does 1 or 4 corresponded to the lower or higher satisfaction? All the table is not clear, the unit of measure and the scale are confused

MANDATORY: Korean chart/table needs to be translated in English to be readable to a international reader. As is, it is difficult to verify and check results and therefore Discussion and Conlusion Sections.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have adequately addressed the reviewers' comments and improved the manuscript. The addition of more background information in the introduction provides better context and justification for the proposed conceptual framework. The limitations of applying Maslow's hierarchy to housing satisfaction are now discussed. More explanation is given for linking the satisfaction factors to different levels of needs. The results section has better flow with the addition of guiding subheadings. The conclusion provides more details on potential applications.

The revisions have strengthened the paper. I recommend accepting the paper for publication after minor edits:

1) Review for minor typos, grammar issues;

2) Ensure headings/subheadings are consistent style;

3)Double check tables/figures.

The authors have put in considerable effort to address the reviewer concerns.  With the minor edits above, this will accept suitable for the journal.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors responded and implemented the requests made in the first round of review in a satisfactory and proactive manner. I believe that the literature review could be improved by mentioning some important and interesting applications of AHP made recently on real estate studies, such as:

·         Jung, C., Al Qassimi, N., Abdelaziz Mahmoud, N. S., & Lee, S. Y. (2022). Analyzing the Housing Consumer Preferences via Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Behavioral Sciences, 12(9), 327.

·         Özsubaşı, B., & Ertaş, M. (2022). The spatial evaluation of the real estates in the Konya-Hacıkaymak Neighborhood with the analytical hierarchy process method. Advanced Land Management, 2(2), 51-59.

·         Aldossary, N. A., Alghamdi, J. K., Alzahrani, A. A., Alqahtany, A., & Alyami, S. H. (2023). Evaluation of Planned Sustainable Urban Development Projects in Al-Baha Region Using Analytical Hierarchy Process. Sustainability, 15(7), 6020.

·         Canesi, R. (2023). A multicriteria approach to prioritize urban sustainable development projects | Un approccio multicriteri per il ranking di progetti urbani sostenibili. Valori e Valutazioni, 2023(33), 117–132. https://doi.org/10.48264/VVSIEV-20233304

 

·         Debora, A., Tajani, F., & Roma, A. (2023). The Real Estate Risk Assessment: An Innovative Methodology for Supporting Public and Private Subjects Involved into Sustainable Urban Interventions. In Computational Science and Its Applications-ICCSA 2023.

 

Minor English editing/Typos and verbs declination for consistency.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf